Jessica Walter  is currently starring as Evangeline Harcourt, the Debutante’s mother in the Broadway revival of Anything Goes, directed and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall.
Anything Goes is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. The original book was a collaborative effort by Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse, heavily revised by the team of Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse.  The story concerns madcap antics aboard an ocean liner bound from New York to London. Billy Crocker is a stowaway in love with heiress Hope Harcourt, who is engaged to Lord Evelyn Oakleigh. Nightclub singer Reno Sweeney and Public Enemy #13 Moonface Martin aid Billy in his quest to win Hope. Â
Since its 1934 Anything Goes debut at the Neil Simon Theatre, at the time known as the Alvin, on Broadway. The musical introduced such songs as “Anything Goes,” “You’re the Top,” and “I Get a Kick Out of You.” and has been revived several times in the United States and Britain and has been filmed twice. The musical has long been a popular choice for school and community productions.
Jessica Walter’s first appearances was in en masse in Sidney Lumet’s The Group in 1966 then in 1971, her flashiest screen role, as the dangerously possessive “number one fan” Evelyn Draper in Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me.   In the early 1960s, she trained alongside James Caan and Christopher Lloyd at New York City’s Neighborhood Playhouse before getting her big break, a regular role on the soap opera Love of Life. She appeared in Flipper, How Much for a Prince, Arrested Development, 90210, Archer, Retired at 35 and many more films. She was the producers’ first choice for the role of “Alexis Carrington” in the primetime soap opera Dynasty.
Since 1983, Walter has been married to actor Ron Leibman and lives both on the Upper West Side and Pound Ridge, NY. The two co-starred in Neil Simon’s play Rumors and also appeared together as husband and wife in the film Dummy and in the TV series Law & Order in the episode “House Counsel”. http://www.anythinggoesonbroadway.com/
